inkgrrl's inkblog

Citizen Smash is passing the word that a good man’s time came last week. My condolences to Bob Zangas’ family and friends – he died doing important and righteous work. Not much more to say than that, besides that I’d dropped by his blog from time to time, but never followed it closely. I think I’m feeling a bit stunned at having been privileged to see such a personal glimpse of a man living his priorities and dying for the same – although it was only a matter of time before one of *us*, a blogger with a public face and strangers wishing him well, drew the ace in Iraq or the ‘Stan. I’d like to say more about the perceived relationship between blogger and reader, about the significance of what Zangas was doing and how his death served a higher purpose, about the gift of his time and attention to the rest of the world via the Internet, but none of it seems like more than narcissistic belly-lint fluffing, so I’ll leave it at this – rest in peace, Bob Zangas. I hope you found what you were looking for on your journey. Thank you.

Sources are all a’buzz that frigid ice queen Europa just might get a little hot lovin’ some time galactically soon. Money’s on the table that it’ll take more than a few D-cells for this mighty metal tool to penetrate all the way through her icy mantle to the warm ‘n juicy stuff.

Wonder if that big bad boy Jupiter will mind his girl Europa playing with toys?

TTFN, dahlings. I’m off to have tea and kissy-poo crumpets with a certain Earthling who puts stars in my eyes…

Zombyboy and Tacitus have both made some excellent points by way of mild- and not-so-mild-mannered rants about Spain’s prime minister-elect, Zapato, and his intended withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.

I can only echo that standing fast in the fire obviously isn’t in Zapato’s mind, nor is any real acknowledgement of Spain’s cultural and remembered significance for modern Arabs as a glorious and shining light of Islamic civilization during the reign of the Umayyad caliphs who had fled there to escape from Abbasid rule in Damascus in 711 CE, and remained there until King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella reconquered all of Andalusia for their Christian empire in 1492 CE (when they also kicked the Jews out of Spain).

Fact is, radical Islam lives in an even more romanticized and twisted version of the past than the rest of the Islamic world, and can never forget that Islam once ruled in Europe. Many Arabs have never forgiven Spain for the loss of Al-Andalus and consider losing such a jewel in the crown of Islam a burning insult gone unpunished. Spain was a logical target by radical Islamist standards for that alone by way of payback for seeming historical wrongs; being our ally didn’t bring this on them, being Spanish did. Maybe Zapatero thinks that if he runs back inside and hides under the bed, the bad men he told to stay off the lawn won’t burn down his house.